Would getting rid of primaries fix politics?

Voters in Colorado Springs cast ballots in September. There's a movement underway to dramatically reform primaries in that state and across the nation.

Voters in Colorado Springs cast ballots in September. There's a movement underway to dramatically reform primaries in that state and across the nation.

Photo: Denver Post Via Getty Images

Photo: Denver Post Via Getty Images

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Voters in Colorado Springs cast ballots in September. There's a movement underway to dramatically reform primaries in that state and across the nation.

Voters in Colorado Springs cast ballots in September. There's a movement underway to dramatically reform primaries in that state and across the nation.

Photo: Denver Post Via Getty Images

Would getting rid of primaries fix politics?

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A growing number of states think primaries breed partisanship and are trying to do away with them.

A handful of influential people in Colorado are the latest to propose a change to the way voters select candidates for a general election.

They want to eliminate party-specific primaries and create a two-stage voting system where any voter can vote for any candidate. The top two candidates, regardless of party, would face off in a general election.

"The hyper-partisanship currently ruining our chances of making real progress on a wide range of public policy challenges isn't an accident. It's a product of an election system that gives power to rigid ideologues way out of proportion to their numbers," wrote Ryan Ross, the director of the Coalition for a New Colorado Election System.

But the proposal is facing vehement opposition from party bosses in Colorado and some elected officials who worry voters in the opposing party will manipulate their primary.

Overall, the nation is torn on the best way to conduct primaries. States like California and Washington have already adopted the two-stage primary system, but it took a decades-long battle. Others have opened their primaries to some degree, like Montana, Louisiana, Wyoming and Democrats in Utah.

Federal courts have weighed in on both sides of the issue.

In 1986, the Supreme Court ruled Connecticut's closed primary law violated Republicans' freedom to associate because the party wasn't able to invite independents to vote.

In 2007, a U.S. Court of Appeals said Virginia's open primary law violated Republicans' freedom to associate because it forced them to allow more voters.

The Supreme Court has decided that primaries need some structure from parties.

But with more and more focus on the country's divisive political scene, party reformers like those in Colorado hope their state and the nation will eventually come around to see the election process their way.

"The initiative would be a game-changer because it would redraw the public-policy map on every significant public-policy challenge we face," Ross wrote.